The room erupted. Bill put up his hands. “Hold it. Before you ask, she did have a clearance at one time but it was on a project totally unrelated and predating any of this suitcase nuke affair.”
“Why does she have White House access?”
“She is pretty much in private practice now, but still acts as consultant to the administration from time to time.”
“What is the nature…?”
“Thank you folks; that will be all,” Margaret said, and began to usher everyone out. Once the room was empty, she said, “I don’t know why everyone, including me, says you can’t handle the media. You did very well right now.”
“Thanks. Wow, what a bunch of lunkheads.”
“What do you mean?”
“I answered the same question five times. Aren’t they listening?”
“Yes, they are. They were hoping that you weren’t and that you would slip up when the question came at you in a different way. But you stuck to the script and gave them no wiggle room. It was good.”
“So does this end it?”
“Hopefully it will get only one more cycle of airplay and then fade.”
“I hope so. Janice is really upset by all this.”
“Look, I don’t blame her. Hell, if I were pregnant, I’d build a house out of lead these days. It’s just your position here at the White House that….”
“Yeah, I know; I got it. Thank you. I’m going back to my office. Let me know if you need anything else from me.”
“You and Janice should take some time off. Maybe go to a lake house or the beach?”
“Lead aprons and all, I suppose.”
Bill had shaken off “Apron-gate” and an hour later was back at his desk focusing on his speech and three other briefing papers he was falling behind on. There is an almost imperceptible swoosh of air, and an energy wave that pours through any open door when the President, on the move, walks by any West Wing office. Most political appointees used it as an early warning system of sorts to kind of perk up and look busy. Bill however, slinked down a little deeper in his chair hoping that the entourage of aides, Secret Service, cabinet officers, congressmen, senators or who ever else was constantly around the leader of the free world whenever he left the Oval, would pass by without the Boss noticing the husband of the “apron lady.” His heart dropped when he heard the most famous voice in American politics say, “Bill, got a minute?”
Bill immediately stood as the President left the parade in the hall, and shut the door.
“During the campaign, my wife was quoted as having said she wasn’t fond of pennies; they cluttered up her purse so she always said ‘keep the change’ or she put them in the little ‘take a penny, give a penny’ thing….”
Bill listened as intently as he could. The moment hung. The president just looked off four years in the past. Bill finally figured he was finished and started to say, “Sounds innocuous enough a statement…”
“We were campaigning in Illinois, Bill!”
“Exactly, Bill. So don’t let this thing with Janice rattle you too much. Remember, the words of the divorced poet: ‘For better or worse is a blessing and a curse.’ You may not quote me.”
“What happens in my office, stays…”
The president interrupted. “What’s this?”
For the second time today the blood rushed from Bill’s face. There, in the President’s hand, was Joey’s stupid counterfeit seal of the QuOG. Trying to read the expression of the man who stood down the Russians in the geopolitical poker bluff of all time over the sovereignty of the Georgian State was futile. The only sound Bill heard was the sound of the blood rushing through his ears.
“You know…I like it!” the President said as he put it back down on the desk. The he turned and snorted, “Football,” and walked out of Bill’s office, leaving the door open.
The giant sigh of relief that escaped from Bill’s lungs had a quick, sharp stop as he realized that Joey would never let him live this down.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
It was a field day for the press. An Al Qaeda operative was caught in Karachi, Pakistan with, of all things, a New York subway map in his possession. Immediately, the NYPD and other agencies went into prevent-defense. “Random Bag Searches” became the
It all went away after a news cycle…until Thursday. That was when Ali Rashid, a.k.a. Rodney Albert, having not read the papers, tried to take the number 1 train from 50th Street to 34th Street/ Penn Station to take New Jersey Transit back to the Store and Lock. His senses tingled as he saw the two officers going through the bags of a blonde woman right ahead of the turnstile. It momentarily froze him. A New York City subway station has a constant wave of people coming and going. Therefore, someone stopped in his tracks creates eddies as scores of people start swirling around that person like water around a rock in a stream. The effect created a highlighted human circle around Rodney. Officer Levant Harris took immediate notice. His eyes met Rodney’s for the briefest of seconds then Rodney averted, turned, and climbed back up the stairs onto 7th Avenue.
“I’ll be right back, Phil,” Levant said to his partner as his hand rested on his standard issue Glock 9mm, steadying it in its holster as he took the stairs two at a time against the flow of entering commuters. On the street, he saw Rodney walking fast downtown. He weaved his way through the throngs of lunchtime workers, visitors, and street vendors. At 48th Street, for the first time, Rodney hazarded a look behind him. Levant startled him by being right there.
“Sir, would you step over to your right.”
“Why? Why you bother me? I not doing nothing.”
Note to anyone visiting New York during a heightened terror alert: do not, repeat, do not under any circumstances disobey a direct order from a member of law enforcement. This especially includes any lip…especially lip in broken Arabic-English. Just ask Rodney.
Before he knew what hit him, Rodney’s face was up against the brick wall of an office building, his arm twisted behind his back, his legs kicked apart, and his wrist smarting from the cuffs that crashed down on them. He was hearing but not understanding what the policeman was saying to him. “…silent, you have the right to an attorney…”
Midtown South was the cop house for that part of Manhattan. David Ginsberg, a proud member of the ACLU, was always poking around there looking for his “issue,” a tort or malfeasance of the law that would catapult him to the stratosphere of the great civil libertarians, the best known of which he shared a name with, if unfortunately not the blood. He felt as though he’d hit the lotto when Levant manhandled Rodney up to the sergeant’s desk for booking.
Within two hours, David had a court order releasing Rodney from a sympathetic judge, who just happened to once be his law professor at Columbia. One Police Plaza had made a political decision not to fight the judge’s order. The commissioner, the Mayor, the New York Visitors Bureau didn’t want to have a major brouhaha over the new subway searches unless this guy Rodney was caught with a weapon, a bomb, or Bin Laden’s baby picture in his wallet.
